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On Wednesday I played a game as the new Dark Eldar against my Necron friend.

After moving my Raider up 24" turn 1, and 12" turn 2, I had a Dark Lance shot on some Immortals. In front of them were small scarab models, up a few inches in front of them. When I look from my gun's [Dark Lance, mounted on the flying Radier] LOS, I do not see the scarabs at all: I only see the squad of Immortals, and I see over half clearly.

My friend claims that because the scarabs are simply there, the Immortals get cover. But again, I cannot even see the Scarabs at all from my skimmer on the flying base, from the gun. Would the Immortals get cover somehow?

You only can claim cover if your enemy is forced to shoot between the models themselves. This means there are certain situations when a unit may be located in front of another, but it does not provide a cover save if the enemy is sufficiently elevated (as in the case of the Raider)

It's all about: can you see the Immortal? If even a foot is unseen, then he can get a cover save. In this instance though, since the dark lance is mounted so high up, and on a model that is on a flying base, the scarabs would have to pretty much touch the Immortals base, for him to even think about getting cover.

There are two ways to gain cover from friendly models - if the enemy has to fire "through the gaps between models in an intervening unit" P22 or if your models are "partially hidden from the firer's view by other models" P21.

And of course, the old caveat of "Firers may shoot over intervening terrain if they are tall enough or high up" P21 always applies.

I doubt very much that the scarabs would have granted a cover save.

I would not have given him the cover save. As long as your have nothing, at all, interfering with your LoS on more than half of the units, he doesn't get a cover save unless there's some special rule saying he does (e.g. smoke, KFF, etc.)

LOS must pass 'through' the intervening unit for a cover save to be claimed.

Check out this thread for a better idea of how most people interpret this concept:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/219003.page